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According to Tyler Kepner in the Times:

[Johnny] Damon said in a text message Friday that the Yankees had offered two years and $14 million, while he had offered to return for two years and $20 million. That was true, a Yankees official confirmed, but by then, the Yankees and Johnson had nearly finished their deal and it was too late to turn back.

The official, who was granted anonymity because the Johnson deal has not been announced, said that Damon’s agent, Scott Boras, wanted a two-year, $26 million deal when he spoke with General Manager Brian Cashman on Wednesday.

In a telephone interview, though, Boras said the Yankees did not begin negotiations with him until Thursday at 4 p.m., when they proposed the two-year, $14 million offer. Boras said he soon countered at two years and $20 million, and Cashman rejected it.

Why didn’t they want Damon back at two-years, $20 million?

Not sure I’m understanding the Yankees’ thinking here.

I went to see Crazy Heart last night and was not disappointed. It is a good, unaffected movie that provides satisfying pleasures, notably getting to watch Jeff Bridges in the lead role. He’s a great American actor and he’s in top form here. It is a story that we’ve seen countless times–it made me think of the Verdict and the Wrestler, but without the tension–but while it is familiar it doesn’t feel stale. It also isn’t self-consciously “small.” The tone feels spot-on (and so does the music), slack, just like Bad Blake (Bridges).

The photography is excellent, and the director, Scott Cooper, cuts between tight shots of Bridges on stage–you feel as if you are in his whiskers–and long shots of the big open sky in the southwest. Bridges carries the movie with grace. He doesn’t make a false step, and the supporting cast of Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall are outstanding too. I don’t think Gyllenhaal has ever been lovelier–she’s radiant. She comes to interview Bad Blake in his hotel room and he says something about how she makes the rest of the room look ugly, and he’s right. She blushes and he says he can’t remember the last time he’d seen somebody blush and that feels so right too.

Farrell plays Bridges’ former protoge who is now a big star. The filmmakers and Farrell display admirable restraint in his scenes which would have been easy to turn into a satire. He plays a cheese-ball pop singer and he sounds like one too, but he isn’t ridiculed for it, lending his scenes on stage with Bridges depth and subtlety. Actually, that is what the movie really offers, some nice, subtle moments. Actors at the top of their game, working together, nothing showy. Duvall shows up half-way through and threatens to ruin the continuity because he’s “Robert Duvall.” But he slides right into the story, and he’s crackles. His scenes with Bridges are wonderful, especially the one where they go fishing together (I love the camera move in that scene as well).

The ending doesn’t really work, but it didn’t disturb my enjoyment much. The pleasures this movie offers might be humble but they are sustaining.

Right on time for Friday night, one of my favorite cuts of ’em all:

And here’s the Sister Nancy sample:

Ken Rosenthal says enough already, the Yanks and Johnny Damon/Scott Boras all need to recognize: they need each other.

Who didn’t like Nick Johnson? He was a good kid, a pleasant, chubby-cheekedguy with a sweet swing and a good glove. Larry Bowa’s nephew. The one who never could stay healthy. A nice Yankee that fell away. 

Well, according to Ken Davidoff, he’s back, to the tune of one-year and five-and-a-half million. Why Johnson and not Godzilla Matsui? I can’t call it. Davidoff goes on to say that this surely spells the end of Johnny Damon in pinstripes. So no Matsui, no Damon, but Nick Johnson?

All I can think of is that noise that Scooby Doo used to make when he was confused, “BBBOORRPP?”

It’s not that I’m unhappy to see Johnson back–I’ve always liked his game and he’ll make an ideal number 2 hitter behind Derek Jeter–but I wonder if he can stay healthy and more to the point, I wonder what else the Yanks have up their sleeve. Johnson alone is not enough. Or am I missing something?

Hmmmm.

They say I’m ugly but it just don’t faze me.

This one was suggested by Diane. I always smile when I hear this record, just never tire of it (from back when Tupac was one of the Underground’s back-up singers).

And dig this, a fun mash-up that a friend of mine did, mixing Lovely Rita with the Humpty Beat.

Powzers.

HumptyRita

Was Tim Raines a greater player than Roberto Clemente? Yes, according to Joe Posnanski who makes a case for Raines as a Hall of Famer.

M’eh, could be.

George King has the details.

The 1965 Juan Marichal-John Roseboro fight is the jumping point for a new one-man show by Roger Guenveur Smith, who received acclaim for his performance as Huey Newton several years ago. The play is reviewed today in the New York Times:

Mr. Smith does a kind of standup theater. (The show has no formal script.) It’s a high-wire act that frequently feels too free associative.

Mr. Smith can be a charming raconteur, smiling and chatting with the audience about the 1965 Dodgers team that included Maury Wills and Sandy Koufax. He can also have a full-tilt actorly intensity (so many tears!) that sometimes overwhelms the material, especially the personal reminiscences.

The bigger problem, though, is that Mr. Smith, who also directed, hasn’t been a ruthless enough editor. He mixes the resonant and the germane (Watts, his father’s business, being black in the ’60s) with bits that don’t quite fit (his recent personal history), and can overreach when trying to connect things. (The projections, by Marc Anthony Thompson, at times suffer from the same problem.)

But when Mr. Smith returns to Roseboro and Marichal, “Juan and John” picks up. Easily inhabiting each man, Mr. Smith shows what a good actor he can be and reminds us what a good story he has to tell. The two eventually patched things up, and when Marichal, who had been kept out of the Hall of Fame because of the incident, calls Roseboro to tell him that he’s finally made it in, Mr. Smith’s tears hit home.

The concept is interesting enough, but this sounds just like the kind of theater experience that reminds me why I generally don’t cotton to one-man performances–just too much self-indulgence for me. I could be wrong, who knows? If anyone sees the show, drop me an e-mail and let me know what you think.

The Yankees Top Ten Prospects according to Baseball America.

From A.O. Scott’s review of the new Jeff Bridges movie:

“Crazy Heart,” written and directed by Scott Cooper, is a small movie perfectly scaled to the big performance at its center. It offers some picturesque views of out-of-the-way parts of the American West, but the dominant feature of its landscape is Bad Blake, a wayward, aging country singer played by Jeff Bridges.

Those last four words should be sufficient recommendation. Some of Mr. Bridges’s peers may have burned more intensely in their prime, but very few American actors over the past 35 years have flickered and smoldered with such craft and resilience. Neither blandly likable nor operatically emotional, this actor has a sly kind of charisma and a casual intelligence. You suspect that he may be smarter than some of the characters he plays — the lounge musician in “The Fabulous Baker Boys,” the deadbeat bowler in “The Big Lebowski,” the egotistical author in “The Door in the Floor,” to take just a few examples — but also that he knows every corner and shadow of each one’s mind.

Well said. This one looks worth checking out.

Marty Appel hipped me to this boss collection of Italian-American baseball cards.

Yogi

Bye Bye Balboni

The Barber

Don Mossi

Dig it.

Johnny Damon wants more than the Yanks are willing to offer…

News at eleven.

Meanwhile, dig this Hideki Matsui appreciation from Sweeny “Eisenhower” Murti:

Matsui’s English was limited. He used a translator (the very able Rogelio “Roger” Kahlon) for all seven of his years as a Yankee. Still, Matsui was comfortable enough to have brief, cordial conversations (“Hi, Hideki…how are you? Fine, Sweeny…how are you?) That’s more than I get from some players who speak perfect English.

And even though it wasn’t always easy to break through the language barrier, Matsui had as fine a sense of humor as anyone. I recall the day in 2004 when I asked his opinion of the rookie-hazing costumes. At that moment, Ruben Sierra walked by both of us wearing one of his typically loud suits complete with fedora, which prompted Matsui to turn to me and ask, “Is he rookie?” As I started to howl with laughter Matsui followed up with, “Every day he’s rookie!”

As far as we know the Yanks are waiting it out with Johnny Damon. But could they be sitting on the dock of a Bay too? Or waiting for a boffo Holliday gift?

One never knows…do one?

I said How’d you like the show? She said, I was very amused.

Over at SI.com, Cliff takes a look at the Lackey signing:

The Red Sox rotation behind Jon Lester and Josh Beckett struggled mightily in 2009. In the 98 games not started by Lester or Beckett this past season, Red Sox starters went 36-36 with a 5.40 ERA, and 1.57 WHIP. With Clay Buchholz having emerged as a legitimate mid-rotation starter in August and Daisuke Matsuzaka having made a strong comeback in mid-September, the Red Sox already had hope for improvement in their rotation heading into 2010, but the addition of Lackey, easily the best starting pitcher in a weak free agent market, ramps that improvement up from modest to drastic. That Lackey might be only the third-best starter in the Red Sox’s rotation is a testament to the depth and strength his signing gives Boston’s staff. Indeed, the Red Sox’s rotation suddenly looks like the best in baseball’s best division, at least for the moment.

Having posted a good-but-not great 3.79 ERA (118 ERA+) in just 339 2/3 innings over the past two seasons, the latter figure due to his starting both seasons on the disabled list with arm aches, including elbow inflammation this past spring, Lackey is more of a No. 2 starter than a proper ace, but that makes him particularly well cast as the No. 3 in Boston. Concerns about those DL stays linger, but Lackey returned in mid-May in both 2008 and 2009 and pitched into the playoffs without reoccurrence of his discomfort both years, throwing a cumulative 196 innings in 30 starts between the regular and postseasons in ’09. In the five seasons prior to 2008, he averaged 210 2/3 innings a year in the regular season alone, establishing a reputation as a horse that his early-season aches have yet to fully undermine. He also arrives in Boston as a strong postseason performer, having famously pitched and won Game 7 of the World Series as a rookie in 2002 and having bettered his career regular season ERA in his 12 postseason starts.

The New York Times reports that Hideki “Godzilla” Matsui has agreed to a one-year deal with the Angels. It was clear that Matsui was not in the plans for the Yankees moving forward and I understand the logic behind their thinking. Still, I will miss him. Which is why I’m pleased that I’m a fan and not an executive. I can appreciate them not re-signing him as a baseball move and still feel sad that “one of ours” has left town. (Matsui joins two other former Yanks, Bobby Abreu and Juan Rivera in the Angels line-up.)

Matsui wasn’t a great Yankee but he was better than good (a new age ‘Ol Reliable) who enjoyed some terrific big-game moments, none bigger than Game 6 of the Serious last month. The Red Sox surely won’t be sorry to see him go. I will miss his calm demeanor (has he ever argued with an umpire since he’s been in States?) and his slashing line-drives. Who’ll soon forget his batting stance? Matsui stood erect and still, his shoulders twitching slightly like a horse swatting away flies with its tail. He was not a physical giant like Alex Rodriguez, but he was a massive guy, the widest player, across the chest, I’ve ever seen.

I’ll even miss his failures, when he rolled over pitches and hit weak dribblers to second, prompting the nickname Groundzilla. I’ll miss his giant head and enormous ears, his sketchy wife and talk of his extensive porn collection. I’ll miss his smile, his joking with teammates, and the feeling that he has a sly sense of humor, not to mention his taste in warm-up songs–from Day Tripper to The Immigrant Song.

Matsui is an icon in Japan (just like Chien-Ming Wang is a national hero in Taiwan) who will be fondly remembered in New York where he became a hero. He’s not as big as Jeter or Rivera or Rodriguez, but a hero all the same–and he’s a far bigger star back home than any baseball player is here. Perhaps he’ll be even more appreciated in New York once he’s gone.

But most of us appreciated him just fine while he was here. In the coming days, I’m sure we’ll read the usual cliches about Matsui being a “classy, professional Yankee.” You know, the kind with “dignity” and “grit.” They might be cliches but if the shoe fits…

Here’s wishing him good luck and success in California.

Sniff.

According to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, John Lackey took a physical in Boston today. Looks like Sox are about to announce their first big deal of the off-season.

Beckett, Lester, Lackey, oh my. That’s an onions top three. Never mind Wake, Clay and Dice K.

Update: Plus, a boffo Roy Halladay rumor.

And ESPN has Hideki Matsui in serious talks with the Angels.

Update: Never mind the Bollocks, Halladay may be a Phillie, according to Jon Heyman. But they lose Lee in the process.

Suddenly, things just got a lot more interesting…

The original version (1968) of “Suspicious Minds” by Mark James:

There is a nice piece on Johan Santana in the Times today.